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On October 19 2023 06:35 Nebuchad wrote: Would be interested in getting a breakdown of why people are saying the Hamas audio released by Israel is fake. Could only find generic statements, nobody going into specifics about what the issues are. And, you know, linguistics are cool.
The people saying it are Hamas, and they didn't give a why. But if it is out there I'd be interested in reading a breakdown as well.
In the Channel 4 summary they say they asked two independant arab journalists and both agreed it was fake.
There's also the issue of the audio not matching the radar picture where Israel said the rocket was launched from, or the videos.
It is of course possible that the recording is fake, I'm not excluding that. But if it's real, why would it be Israel's problem if a Hamas member got something factually wrong when talking about a third party? The IDF version of events clearly doesn't put any stock on the operational rumors in that recording.
I feel like this is confusing people...
On the left you see the red circle where Israel is saying the rocket was launched from based on their radar/trajectory analysis.
On the right you see the zoomed in circle of the hospital where you can see the cemetery from which Israel (and the audio) *also* says the rocket was fired from.
Hagari said IDF trajectory analysis confirmed that rockets were fired from close proximity to the hospital...
“At 6:59 p.m., a barrage of around 10 rockets was fired by Islamic Jihad from a nearby cemetery. It was at the time, 6:59 p.m. — when there were reports of an explosion at the hospital in Gaza City,” he said.
EDIT: Of note is that the area labeled by Israel as the origin of the rockets in the south west of the picture is about the least populated area they could possibly launch from.
What I see here are people holding Israel to an impossible standard of evidence.
Hamas claims are basically repeated as fact despite not a shred of evidence for their claims: That Israel bombed a hospital and killed 500 people.
Israel releases its evidence that points to it being a failed PIJ rocket launch. There is perhaps some contention over the authenticity of one or two pieces of their evidence (the video timestamp and the supposed fake intercepted call).
It doesn't change the fact that there are now videos of the aftermath, which are a load of burnt out cars, some disturbed roof tiles and a bomb crater that's smaller than a pothole in a local road to me. And we still believe this was plausibly caused by an Israeli bomb, which are capable of levelling entire buildings?
On October 19 2023 20:08 ahswtini wrote: What I see here are people holding Israel to an impossible standard of evidence.
Hamas claims are basically repeated as fact despite not a shred of evidence for their claims: That Israel bombed a hospital and killed 500 people.
Israel releases its evidence that points to it being a failed PIJ rocket launch. There is perhaps some contention over the authenticity of one or two pieces of their evidence (the video timestamp and the supposed fake intercepted call).
It doesn't change the fact that there are now videos of the aftermath, which are a load of burnt out cars, some disturbed roof tiles and a bomb crater that's smaller than a pothole in a local road to me. And we still believe this was plausibly caused by an Israeli bomb, which are capable of levelling entire buildings?
Well no, we don't. But Israel doesn't only have one type of bomb, it could have been some other type of munition, as mentioned in the Channel 4 summary.
We're spending a little more time talking about this than it warrants imo. Israel's version of events looks decently plausible but there are some lies in there that make it more shaky than it had to be. And this is distinct from some other events like the Shireen Akleh killing where I'm sure I could find some posts in this forum talking about how we can't really know and we have to wait. No, we knew, that was clearly just waiting for things to cool down before it's announced that the IDF killed her. Here I don't think we can say the same.
On October 19 2023 20:08 ahswtini wrote: What I see here are people holding Israel to an impossible standard of evidence.
Hamas claims are basically repeated as fact despite not a shred of evidence for their claims: That Israel bombed a hospital and killed 500 people.
Israel releases its evidence that points to it being a failed PIJ rocket launch. There is perhaps some contention over the authenticity of one or two pieces of their evidence (the video timestamp and the supposed fake intercepted call).
It doesn't change the fact that there are now videos of the aftermath, which are a load of burnt out cars, some disturbed roof tiles and a bomb crater that's smaller than a pothole in a local road to me. And we still believe this was plausibly caused by an Israeli bomb, which are capable of levelling entire buildings?
Well no, we don't. But Israel doesn't only have one type of bomb, it could have been some other type of munition, as mentioned in the Channel 4 summary.
We're spending a little more time talking about this than it warrants imo. Israel's version of events looks decently plausible but there are some lies in there that make it more shaky than it had to be. And this is distinct from some other events like the Shireen Akleh killing where I'm sure I could find some posts in this forum talking about how we can't really know and we have to wait. No, we knew, that was clearly just waiting for things to cool down before it's announced that the IDF killed her. Here I don't think we can say the same.
We're spending too much time talking about what would be a serious war crime if the strike came from Israel? I have to strongly disagree. We should talk about this as much as is necessary to get to the truth and then propagate that truth until no one can reasonably deny it, regardless of what the truth is. If it was Hamas, that needs to be widely known. If it was Israel, that needs to be widely known. No compromises.
On October 19 2023 20:08 ahswtini wrote: What I see here are people holding Israel to an impossible standard of evidence.
Hamas claims are basically repeated as fact despite not a shred of evidence for their claims: That Israel bombed a hospital and killed 500 people.
Israel releases its evidence that points to it being a failed PIJ rocket launch. There is perhaps some contention over the authenticity of one or two pieces of their evidence (the video timestamp and the supposed fake intercepted call).
It doesn't change the fact that there are now videos of the aftermath, which are a load of burnt out cars, some disturbed roof tiles and a bomb crater that's smaller than a pothole in a local road to me. And we still believe this was plausibly caused by an Israeli bomb, which are capable of levelling entire buildings?
Well no, we don't. But Israel doesn't only have one type of bomb, it could have been some other type of munition, as mentioned in the Channel 4 summary.
We're spending a little more time talking about this than it warrants imo. Israel's version of events looks decently plausible but there are some lies in there that make it more shaky than it had to be. And this is distinct from some other events like the Shireen Akleh killing where I'm sure I could find some posts in this forum talking about how we can't really know and we have to wait. No, we knew, that was clearly just waiting for things to cool down before it's announced that the IDF killed her. Here I don't think we can say the same.
We're spending too much time talking about what would be a serious war crime if the strike came from Israel? I have to strongly disagree. We should talk about this as much as is necessary to get to the truth and then propagate that truth until no one can reasonably deny it, regardless of what the truth is. If it was Hamas, that needs to be widely known. If it was Israel, that needs to be widely known. No compromises.
Depending on what we find out about the consequences of the deprivation of water to Gaza, it might end up feeling quite insignificant tbh.
So... Egypt has to repair the roads on the opposite side of it's border in order to get the trucks going? I'm surprised the Egyptian military has not pushed back and had, say, special forces move everyone back and started guarding said aid when they, hopefully, eventually start crossing...
Biden said Egypt’s president agreed to open the crossing and to let in an initial group of 20 trucks with humanitarian aid. If Hamas confiscated aid, “it will end”, he said. The aid would start moving Friday at the earliest, White House officials said.
He added that the 20 trucks represented a “first tranche” but “150 or something” trucks were waiting in total. Whether the rest were allowed to cross would depend on “how it goes”.
Egypt says the roads across the border need to be repaired after they were hit by Israeli airstrikes. More than 200 trucks and 3,000 tonnes of aid are positioned at or near the Rafah crossing, according to the head of the Red Crescent for North Sinai, Khalid Zayed.
Supplies would go in under supervision of the UN, the Egyptian foreign minister, Sameh Shoukry, told Al Arabiya TV. Asked if foreigners and dual nationals seeking to leave would be let through, he said: “As long as the crossing is operating normally and the [crossing] facility has been repaired.”
Previous assurances from the US that the border would open have not materialised.
I’m a little disappointed the OSINT folks haven’t come up with something more conclusive on the hospital strike by now. I watched the Channel 4 thing which claims language experts call the “intercepted audio” obviously fake; I can’t speak to that, but I will say when I first saw it I wasn’t that convinced anyway. Assuming it’s a real conversation between two Hamas members, it still sounds more like a couple guys gossiping and discussing the news, there’s not much indication either of them actually has inside information. The guy claiming it was launched from the graveyard *might* be speaking from first-hand knowledge, but it’s just as likely stuff he heard through the grapevine or from a comment on Twitter or something. Finally (as the channel 4 video points out) if you actually watch a video of the explosion it really doesn’t look like it’s coming from a cemetery right next door, it looks like it comes in at a high, pretty horizontal angle with a lot of speed.
Twitter is suddenly awash with “munitions experts” the same way it was awash with “epidemiologists” a few years ago, which isn’t helping. Lots of arguments about what a JDAM airburst explosion would or wouldn’t look like. I’m not that guy, I don’t even know what a JDAM is and I was hoping to be able to listen to experts rather than try to understand all the science myself on this one. If videos of the explosion and photos of the impact site the next day aren’t conclusive, I’m not sure we’re gonna get a concrete answer without someone producing shrapnel to analyze (which they probably would have done by now if they were going to).
On October 19 2023 22:54 ChristianS wrote: I’m a little disappointed the OSINT folks haven’t come up with something more conclusive on the hospital strike by now. I watched the Channel 4 thing which claims language experts call the “intercepted audio” obviously fake; I can’t speak to that, but I will say when I first saw it I wasn’t that convinced anyway. Assuming it’s a real conversation between two Hamas members, it still sounds more like a couple guys gossiping and discussing the news, there’s not much indication either of them actually has inside information. The guy claiming it was launched from the graveyard *might* be speaking from first-hand knowledge, but it’s just as likely stuff he heard through the grapevine or from a comment on Twitter or something. Finally (as the channel 4 video points out) if you actually watch a video of the explosion it really doesn’t look like it’s coming from a cemetery right next door, it looks like it comes in at a high, pretty horizontal angle with a lot of speed.
Twitter is suddenly awash with “munitions experts” the same way it was awash with “epidemiologists” a few years ago, which isn’t helping. Lots of arguments about what a JDAM airburst explosion would or wouldn’t look like. I’m not that guy, I don’t even know what a JDAM is and I was hoping to be able to listen to experts rather than try to understand all the science myself on this one. If videos of the explosion and photos of the impact site the next day aren’t conclusive, I’m not sure we’re gonna get a concrete answer without someone producing shrapnel to analyze (which they probably would have done by now if they were going to).
I wouldn't be surprised if a few days later, they come out with some Israeli bomb fragments and say "trust us bro, these were found at the hospital".
I'm not sure what more you were hoping from the OSINT guys. There is a video showing a projectile being launched from a location near the hospital. It suffers some kind of malfunction/explosion in mid-air. A few seconds later, there is a detonation and fireball in an area that has been clearly geolocated to be the hospital carpark (the solar panel mounts are clearly visible).
Unlike Israeli bombs, where there is a momentary fireball and then nothing (and you can verify this yourself by checking youtube for videos of actual Israeli airstrikes in the current war), the explosion at the hospital resulted in a big fire, which is consistent with unburnt rocket fuel and the fuel in the cars being set alight. The big fireball looks more like a movie explosion. Real explosions do not generate such a confragration.
@Jimmi: Realistically even with everybody trying really earnestly to put out accurate numbers, it would still be pretty hard to have accurate casualty estimates. Estimating casualties is just hard!
That said, you can use some common sense. If the hospital *had* been blown up, 500+ doesn’t sound remotely unreasonable. As is, you’d have to guess it’s <100; I mean, just how many people can there be standing around in a parking lot in the middle of the night, even in a highly populated area? The counts so far from the various apartment buildings, etc. haven’t seemed particularly eye-popping; if an apartment building gets leveled, and somebody tells you 80 people died, even if you don’t trust the source the number can’t be *that* much lower, can it?
@ahswyini: I mean, I’m mostly saying this because most of the OSINT folks themselves seem to still be saying some version of “lean toward this answer, but so far inconclusive.” Mind posting sources on some of what you’re saying? Because I know there’s been a lot of Twitter threads claiming to “prove” attribution only to be debunked.
On October 19 2023 23:59 ChristianS wrote: @Jimmi: Realistically even with everybody trying really earnestly to put out accurate numbers, it would still be pretty hard to have accurate casualty estimates. Estimating casualties is just hard!
That said, you can use some common sense. If the hospital *had* been blown up, 500+ doesn’t sound remotely unreasonable. As is, you’d have to guess it’s <100; I mean, just how many people can there be standing around in a parking lot in the middle of the night, even in a highly populated area? The counts so far from the various apartment buildings, etc. haven’t seemed particularly eye-popping; if an apartment building gets leveled, and somebody tells you 80 people died, even if you don’t trust the source the number can’t be *that* much lower, can it?
@ahswyini: I mean, I’m mostly saying this because most of the OSINT folks themselves seem to still be saying some version of “lean toward this answer, but so far inconclusive.” Mind posting sources on some of what you’re saying? Because I know there’s been a lot of Twitter threads claiming to “prove” attribution only to be debunked.
Here is a video showing what actual Israeli air strikes look like.
I can only assume the OSINT guys say nothing is definitive because they don't have the information to arrive at a conclusion. They don't have access to Israeli or US military intelligence. They can't rule out the possibility that, for some reason, Israel did drop a small firecracker of a bomb on a hospital.
On October 19 2023 23:59 ChristianS wrote: @Jimmi: Realistically even with everybody trying really earnestly to put out accurate numbers, it would still be pretty hard to have accurate casualty estimates. Estimating casualties is just hard!
That said, you can use some common sense. If the hospital *had* been blown up, 500+ doesn’t sound remotely unreasonable. As is, you’d have to guess it’s <100; I mean, just how many people can there be standing around in a parking lot in the middle of the night, even in a highly populated area? The counts so far from the various apartment buildings, etc. haven’t seemed particularly eye-popping; if an apartment building gets leveled, and somebody tells you 80 people died, even if you don’t trust the source the number can’t be *that* much lower, can it?
@ahswyini: I mean, I’m mostly saying this because most of the OSINT folks themselves seem to still be saying some version of “lean toward this answer, but so far inconclusive.” Mind posting sources on some of what you’re saying? Because I know there’s been a lot of Twitter threads claiming to “prove” attribution only to be debunked.
Right so the Hamas authorities inflated the number by 10x -100x, while standing surrounded by bodies to make it more visceral and generate more hate. Does this mean the rest of their numbers are by the same factor? No one is fact checking all the reports. Are they counting the legitimate targets?
How many Palestinians civilians have died since this started 100 2000? Who knows.
Did you read the bit I wrote about using common sense? If an apartment building got leveled and they say 80 people died, you don’t have to trust them to know it’s unlikely that number is inflated by 10x. As for the bit about “legitimate targets,” how is anybody supposed to know what the IDF considers a “legitimate target”? They’re just reporting body counts.
But be real man, you know more than 100 people have died. You don’t have to be pro-Hamas to understand that. I get that you support Israel, but you don’t have to bury your head in the sand to do that.
@ahswtini: It certainly seems pretty clear it was a missile or rocket, not a bomb. I’m not sure what comparison with big Israeli bombs is supposed to show, though; presumably they have a variety of munitions available. It doesn’t seem shocking they’d choose a small one if they knew the target close to a hospital.
All of this continues to make me feel way out of my depth. My best summary at this point is “probably, but not definitively caused by a malfunctioning Hamas rocket (or some other anti-IDF insurgent group), and almost certainly not fired from an adjacent cemetery like the IDF claims.” I’m not seeing a ton of experts that are expressing much more confidence than that.
On October 19 2023 23:59 ChristianS wrote: @Jimmi: Realistically even with everybody trying really earnestly to put out accurate numbers, it would still be pretty hard to have accurate casualty estimates. Estimating casualties is just hard!
That said, you can use some common sense. If the hospital *had* been blown up, 500+ doesn’t sound remotely unreasonable. As is, you’d have to guess it’s <100; I mean, just how many people can there be standing around in a parking lot in the middle of the night, even in a highly populated area? The counts so far from the various apartment buildings, etc. haven’t seemed particularly eye-popping; if an apartment building gets leveled, and somebody tells you 80 people died, even if you don’t trust the source the number can’t be *that* much lower, can it?
@ahswyini: I mean, I’m mostly saying this because most of the OSINT folks themselves seem to still be saying some version of “lean toward this answer, but so far inconclusive.” Mind posting sources on some of what you’re saying? Because I know there’s been a lot of Twitter threads claiming to “prove” attribution only to be debunked.
Right so the Hamas authorities inflated the number by 10x -100x, while standing surrounded by bodies to make it more visceral and generate more hate. Does this mean the rest of their numbers are by the same factor? No one is fact checking all the reports. Are they counting the legitimate targets?
How many Palestinians civilians have died since this started 100 2000? Who knows.
The sad thing is that while you are focusing on a missile strike (that you don't know the truth), while there have been a shitload of bombings on a densely populated area while denying electricity, etc. But hey, i am sure they are bombing with very precise weaponry that's causing much less death than those numbers.
Reading this thread it's like reading republicans justifying shitty policies because it's their team, but worse, because here people are literally getting bombed or denied basic human rights. I don't give a shit if HAMAS masked the numbers, or if it was Israel or not. I care about what is going on, and what we actually know, not this myopic discussion about the missile strike.
But when you have people advocating for ethnic cleansing in this thread, i don't know what to expect. These genocide enablers need something to justify themselves i guess.
On October 20 2023 00:49 ChristianS wrote: If an apartment building got leveled and they say 80 people died, you don’t have to trust them to know it’s unlikely that number is inflated by 10x.
It absolutely can be inflated by 10x. There could be few people in this building if, say, IDF warned about the strike. Or for other reasons. It's not unlikely that it's 80, of course - but it's also not unlikely that it was 8.
It is almost impressive how one sided your summary is. You seem to have missed over half the video which presents information about how different a missile strike is compared to a motor strike, and how the ground and buildings show it was far more likely a motor, even the windows of an adjoining church are intact. Or the video of the rocket fired from Gaza exploding in the air right before the explosion near the hospital (no guarantee they are related) and Hamas said its not. They play the recording that Israel presented a recording they say is two Hamas operatives talking about the attack and the spin and Hamas claims its a fake.
If you are going to claim you are summarizing a source can you at least pretend to not be incredibly one sided, it is only a 5 minute video it is not like you missed both sides, you just chose to ignore it.
Well it is true that not all negative talk about Israel is biased, or antisemitic. It is also true that some of it is, do not be in the later category. (this is to everyone, there is a lot of sources that are antisemitic and people who are going down that path without even knowing it.)
It is ludacris to have to fact check a summary of a 5 minute video, but here we are.
Being very, very biased against Israel is not antisemitic, unless you are very, very biased against Israel because they are Jewish.
Sure it is possible, just unlikely. At some point it is worth considering if the sources or people are completely one sided where they stand. If people cheer for Hamas. When people start talking about killing all capitalists, or globalists and are super one sided about Israel, you can define them however you want.
On top of that being super one sided and biased is not something to be proud of, it is going to lead to being wrong on all sorts of things as assumptions build on each other and these are the building blocks of hate.
I'm biased against the Israeli government.
Shit I'm biased against the current UK government, and they are far, far less right wing and fucking nuts than the Israeli government.
Its nothing to do with hatred. Its about not believing a word that comes from extreme right wing crazies.
Picking teams in a fight between Israel’s extremely shitty current government (an opinion shared by most Israelis) and literal terrorists is such a weird thing to do. You don’t have to be on a team here.
If someone told me that Israel bombed a hospital I’d think “yeah, probably, sounds like the kind of thing they’d do”. If someone told me that Hamas bombed a hospital and blamed Israel I’d think the exact same thing.
The idea that Israel would never do such a thing is incompatible with observable reality. The idea that Hamas would never do such a thing is only marginally stupider. There’s no team to root for here, only condemnation to be handed out in spades.
One thing that I will note though is that if Israel wanted to destroy a hospital then the hospital would have been a lot more destroyed than this one was.
EPT![[image loading]](https://www.thesun.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/TB_JIHAD-V2.jpg?strip=all&w=960)
